


hindsight is 20/20

by commovente



Series: SASO2016: bonus round 2 [5]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: (and all the suffering that entails), Gen, Teikou Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commovente/pseuds/commovente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p> they still win, of course. after all, what is teikou if not a constant pursuit for victory?</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	hindsight is 20/20

**Author's Note:**

> written as a prompt fill for SASO 2016, bonus round 2: images. the original prompt is [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13854.html?thread=5351198#cmt5351198).
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> i haven't been a basuke for years but honestly. the pain re: nijimura shuuzou is fresh & eternal

nijimura’s not sure when it all starts to go wrong so much as he starts to notice it already has. _this’ll become an interesting team_ , he once said, and on that count he wasn’t wrong, per se, but. this isn’t how he imagined any of it would go down, when he allowed himself the time to think of his team as anything less than a concentration of rivalry or anything more than people who happened to spend the same regular amounts of time with each other every week.

they still win, of course. after all, what is teikou if not a constant pursuit for victory? a conquest of keeping it in their hands, held by its throat. but nijimura still steps onto the edge of the court once the match finishes, paying little mind to the truly impressive digits on the scoreboard — those stopped fazing nijimura long enough ago that he doesn’t bother trying to remember. instead, he settles a palm on aomine’s head. it’s an easy task for nijimura — aomine’s got his head turned to the floor, and what kind of winner allows that?

“you can be a bit happier,” nijimura says, ruffling aomine’s hair with a little more force to counteract whatever he’s saying.

in hindsight, maybe he shouldn’t have. in hindsight, it’s easy to notice things but not nearly so simple to undo them, alter them. coming to terms with loss is never quite so straightforward. nijimura’s not even sure how he’s supposed to categorise what’s happening here.

so he doesn’t.

nijimura continues walking after that, faces forward without turning back to gauge aomine’s reaction. beyond anything else — or, perhaps, in spite of everything else that was happening, has happened, will continue to happen — nijimura believed aomine would follow. hell, a part of him wonders how it hasn’t flipped on its head yet, nijimura running after aomine’s trailblazing steps, pushing him forward before considering if he could catch up.

later, nijimura will look back on this and think, _maybe i should’ve turned around._ he’ll remember this moment with careful clarity and even more deliberately suppressed regret and realise, _i didn’t treat aomine as half the kid i said i knew he was._ maybe they were all brats back then, soaring fearlessly, recklessly, on victory. even now, nijimura doesn’t ever think back on this moment and consider was would’ve happened if he’d stopped walking then entirely.

if instead, he’d never left at all, hand anchoring and secure above aomine’s head until aomine could lift it and look forward instead. victory in all aspects. but that sounds an a lot like regret, and above all else nijimura believes he left his time at teikou without any regrets. to change that now, what would that achieve?

(what would still be left?)

 

 

_ you are shaking fists & trembling teeth. _

_ i know: _

_ you did not mean to be cruel. _

_ that does not mean you were kind. _

— venetta octavia, [THE BURNING](http://venettaoctavia.tumblr.com/post/145334784351/you-are-shaking-fists-trembling-teeth-i-know)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
